Six Experiments
by Artemis J. Halk
Summary: The six experiments were something that Alex fully intended to take to her grave. But then she cracked and couldn't go on anymore. Intense fic featuring Alex reacting to the death of her babies. Part of my Hank/Alex collection.


THIS STORY INVOLVES GROWING BABIES IN LABS AND THE DEATHS OF THOSE BABIES. THIS IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART.

I will be the first to admit that this is one of the most fucked-up things that I have ever written. I'm not going to pretend like this isn't disturbing... it disturbs ME immensely.

Honestly, I'm not going to be overly offended if you choose to close out the tab, go back and find something else to read. I intend to have a sort of immediate sequel to this story that is MUCH, MUCH, MUCH happier up in a few minutes. It won't be necessary to read this in order to understand what's happening in the sequel, though.

* * *

The six experiments were something that Alex Danvers fully intended to take to her grave.

It had started months ago, the idea that had lead her down the path that she was on now. It was the first time that she and Hank had been intimate.

She'd expressed her reluctance to end up pregnant, despite the fact that Hank said that Martians and humans were physically incompatible. However, he meant in the most physical of ways— the square peg into a round hole, if you will. Alex was certain that there were enough similarities between the two species that a hybrid human/Martian might be possible.

But, she'd decided that she shouldn't tell Hank about her theory whatsoever, or her idea for doing experiments. He'd been through so much with losing his family, his entire species, and he didn't need the added loss of a dead fetus on top of everything.

So that meant that she needed to learn how to shield her mind from him. She told him that she was worried about other mind-readers so that he'd give her lessons. It took several months, but it's not like it was a skill that would go to waste or anything.

She knew that Hank would never read her mind without permission, but she did enjoy having him read her mind. Especially during sex. She just didn't want for him to accidentally stumble onto something that she didn't want him to. That's all.

After she was confident that she'd be able to block the thoughts of her experiments from him, she started. The first thing that she needed was some eggs. Of course, she could have easily obtained any woman's eggs, but she didn't want to drag some innocent and unaware woman into her experiment.

So she went and she had several of her eggs drawn, stating that she wished to freeze them in case she decided she wanted to have children later. She was dressed in a nice pants suit, and she knew that she gave off the aura of a career woman who was nearly at the top of her field. The people didn't question her.

It wasn't a very painful process, just unpleasant. Alex hoped that she would have enough positive results with the eggs that they had extracted so that she wouldn't have to go and get more done.

Getting some of Hank's sperm was more than easy enough. She just had to take a used condom of his.

Of course, the first thing she did was to compare a sample of his ejaculate with that of a random human male, just to make sure that Hank was ejaculating as a Martian, and not a a human. He was, so Alex started her experiments.

People had been growing babies in labs for a long time. It wasn't something that was public knowledge, and for good reason. If those religious zealots knew that people were growing babies in labs, not only for women who were unable to carry to term, but also to test the effects of fetal alcohol poisoning and second-hand smoke, among other things, there would be a giant outcry.

So it wasn't difficult at all for Alex to set up her experiment, even if half of the child's DNA would be Martian.

She named the project Alison, figuring that the life that she was attempting to create deserved at least a name. Of course, she would have no way of knowing if the resulting child would be male or female until the sixteenth week. But, Alison was a good-enough name, Alex supposed.

She was more than a little surprised when the sperm and egg resulted in a single cell.

When cells divide, they make copies of all of the information so that each cell ends up with all sets of relevant information. However, sperm and eggs go through a slightly different process. Instead of copying the info for the new cell, the sperm and egg only end up with half of the DNA. So, when sperm meets egg, it results in a single cell again, only it's half the mother, half the father.

Alex carefully observed "Alison" for about a week. Her cells were diving properly as they should be, but by the fifth day, the cells stopped dividing completely. Alex waited two more days past that to see if they would start diving again, but had to admit that "Alison" had died.

Alex felt an odd sense of guilt as she wrote up the end notes for Alison. She had known that things might not work out, but she'd gotten a tiny bit hopeful when the cells had started to divide.

However, she was not ready to give up just yet; this was just the beginning of her experiment. She knew that some babies took a long time to grow, and some labs had tougher protocols to better replicate the environment of a womb. And Alex admitted to herself that she hadn't exactly stuck to a lot of protocols with Alison.

So she tightened her own expectations and started with "Bartholomew".

He lasted longer than Alison had, but his cells stopped dividing by the eleventh day.

Happy to know that Alison hadn't been a complete fluke, Alex tightened the protocols as much as she could and began on "Caroline". However, despite adhering to the strictest of protocols, Caroline lasted for eleven days, just as Bartholomew had.

Frustrated that things weren't turning out as she'd hoped, Alex began to wonder if it wasn't so much the "mother" that was killing the fetuses, but rather, the Martian DNA. She knew everything that there was to know about human pregnancy, but she knew next to nothing about Martian pregnancies.

She decided to try and mimic the environment on Mars for the "outside" environment as she started with "Doug".

While his cells were dividing, Alex started to casually ask Hank more and more about Martian biology. She would hide her questions of pregnancy and gestation between a bunch of seemingly random other questions, that didn't have anything to do with it. Since they talked about literally everything, Hank was more than happy to answer her questions to the best of his knowledge.

Even though Alex was exceptionally depressed when Doug died at fifteen days, she was exceptionally pleased with the results. Apparently, the "mother" needed to have more stimulants leaning closer to the Martian side, rather than human. Since Alex had no female Martians to examine, she had no way of really knowing the exact make-up of a Martian womb. It would be mostly trial-and-error at this point. She did her best to set up another experiment, "Eva".

* * *

It was around this time that Hank started to notice a difference in Alex. "Are you okay? You're barely sleeping, and it looks like you've lost some weight, too," he asked her one evening.

"I'm… I don't know," she said with hesitation. She still didn't want to tell him about Alison, Bartholomew, Caroline, Doug, and Eva. It might get his hopes up. "I'm just… going through some stuff. In the lab."

Hank ran his hand down Alex's cheek tenderly, and Alex felt another stab of guilt. "If you won't talk to me, then at least talk to one of the DEO councilors," he finally told her. "Please don't make me order you to go, Alex."

"I won't," she said with a slight shake of her head. "I promise that I'll talk to somebody, though." She kissed the palm of his hand, and that had been the end of that conversation. At least, for the moment.

* * *

The next day, Alex looked up the number for a miscarriage hotline, figuring that it was probably the closest thing that she was feeling at the moment. And it's not like the labs that made the babies had hotlines that she could call, anyway. She told the person on the other end, Hilary, that she'd had four miscarriages already, and lied and said that the doctor didn't know what was wrong with her.

They talked for a while, but Hillary finally suggested that maybe Alex would feel better if she had a tangible place to express her grief. "A lot of people bury the remains of their miscarried children. They find that it helps a lot. I know that some time has passed since any of your pregnancies, but you could still get a little grave stone for each of your children," Hillary said.

Alex contemplated this idea for a long time. She had never been one much for religion; her entire life was based around scientific fact. Her father was a scientist, and so was she.

When her father had died, she hadn't been brought comfort by a stone that said his name and the the time that he'd been alive. She'd been rather disturbed by it, and hadn't wanted to go back to the local cemetery after his funeral. It was just depressing.

However, her mother hadn't felt the same way about it as Alex had, and often made monthly visits to the cemetery. Alex mused on that for a while, before she decided that maybe she'd feel differently about it from the perspective of a mother. After all, these things that she was creating in the lab weren't bacteria cultures, but rather, her own children.

She finally decided to do something to honor her lost "children" when Eva's cells stopped dividing at twenty-two days. It was the longest that any of them had survived, so Alex was certain that she was on the right path.

But at the same time, she'd never felt quite so low.

She drove out to the nearest cemetery that wasn't affiliated with any sort of religion, and spoke to the grounds-keeper about getting a space for her "children". The man seemed to take sympathy with her, and showed her a catalog of grave-stones that she could pick from. Alex picked something simple and small, and something that she could write a lot of things on. She wanted room for any future "children", on top of the five that had already been lost.

* * *

Alex didn't start her next experiment until the gravestone came in. She was rather reluctant to add another name to it so quickly, after all.

She named this one "Francis". He lasted for nearly a month and a half before he died.

He was only about the size of her pinky nail, but through the mostly translucent skin, she could see his heart beating frantically just before it had stopped completely.

The sight of it broke Alex. None of the others had felt very real until that moment. She saw his heart beating, and then… nothing. He had been alive. So alive.

She pressed her face onto the desk next to the incubator and wept.

* * *

She went back to the cemetery where the stone for her other children was. She ordered a second one for Francis, determined to put his remains into the ground. She knew that it was a risk to bring him outside of the lab, but she was beyond caring at that point.

* * *

The day after she buried Francis, she went into her private lab and trashed the place. She couldn't deal with setting up another experiment. Not after Francis. She didn't want to look at her equipment, not the stuff that had helped her to bring all of them into the world… and allowed her to promptly kill them.

When everything was in pieces around her, she sunk down onto her desk chair and cried again.

* * *

Hank had been called away to deal with something going on in Guinea-Bissau the day before Francis had died. Since Alex was his second in command, he'd left her in charge of the DEO while he was away.

Alex missed him, but as she started to clean up her lab, she realized that the alien emergency in Africa was a blessing for her. She couldn't hope to hide this from him when she was so messed up over Francis's death.

She would use the time that he was gone to grieve, and then she would put everything behind her. She wouldn't so much as think about trying to have a child with Hank, be that child raised in a lab or in her own womb. It hurt too much to think about, and she wasn't sure if she'd ever be ready to think about it.

And under no circumstances was she to tell Hank about any of this. Ever. If she was this upset over the deaths of their children, she couldn't even begin to imagine how upset that he would be.

However, she wasn't exactly expecting for Hank to be waiting for her at her apartment when she got home that evening.

"Kara took care of the problem so quickly," Hank told her as she let them inside. "It was a good decision to bring her along. Kara wanted to stay and see some of the sights, but I told- Alex? What's wrong?"

The brave front that Alex had put on as she'd left the DEO and driven herself home crumpled as soon as she was in her apartment with Hank. The dam broke and tears started to stream down her face again. She collapsed against the door and roughly bit down onto her first knuckle to keep from screaming out in agony.

Hank was at her side in an instant, uncertain of what he should do, but simply knowing that his parter was in complete and utter anguish.

She clung to him, her fingers knotting themselves into the fabric of his shirt tightly. He simply held her, and waited for her to calm down a little before he tried to ask her what was wrong again.

"Alex?" he finally whispered after about half an hour.

"It's all my fault," Alex sobbed.

"Come on, it can't be that bad if I didn't get a call while I was-"

"No, nobody else knows about this!" Alex snapped at him. She half-pulled away from him, to put some distance between them even though he was still holding onto her. He let her move, but didn't drop his hands from her arms. She looked down at her hands. "I killed them; their deaths are on my hands. I don't know how I can live with that."

"Alex, what are you talking about?" Hank asked with confusion.

Alex stepped further away from him until they were no longer touching. She took a couple of deep breaths and then rubbed the tears from her eyes. She finally looked up at Hank's face; it was filled with worry and concern for her.

They'd both made a promise to the other not to keep stuff from each other. Especially not heavy stuff, that affected them emotionally. She knew that Hank was worried about her, had been for some time.

She also knew that she didn't want to deal with her grief alone anymore.

"I… I have something that I need to show you," she said with some hesitation.

"Okay," Hank said slowly. Alex turned around, opened the door to her apartment, and walked out into the hall. Hank took her keys from her, and locked her apartment back up.

"Maybe I should drive?" he said as they started towards the elevator. Alex could only nod. They went downstairs and got into Hank's car. "Where are we going?"

"Sycamore street and Jackson avenue," she said quietly.

Hank was still for a moment as he tried to think of what was at the intersection of those streets. "Alex, I-"

"Please, I don't want to talk," she whispered.

"Okay," he replied gently. He started the car up and they pulled away.

* * *

He felt every second that they drove towards those streets. His mind was churning, coming up with worse and worse scenarios as to what Alex might have to show him. The silence in the car was completely deafening. The only noise from inside the car was Alex's occasional sob or sniffle.

Finally, they got to the intersection and Hank saw the cemetery. His heart sank. What exactly did Alex want to show him that had her this upset? There wasn't anything else out here, so it had to be in the cemetery.

Alex directed him into the parking lot, and then lead him through the open gates and over to the far corner of the yard.

It was a beautiful place; brilliant-green grass that was well-maintained, gravemarkers that looked well cared-for. It was a new cemetery. But he hated the thought of being surrounded by so much death. He'd had more than enough of it back on Mars.

Alex stopped at the last row of gravemarkers, although there was still plenty of room for others later. The newest sent of deceased. "Those last two," she whispered, unable to go forward.

Hank walked towards the stones, almost not wanting to see what they'd have to say.

The first one was simple: a sandstone marker with five lines of writing, and nothing else. Each line was a name.

Alison J'onzz

Bartholomew J'onzz

Caroline J'onzz

Doug J'onzz

Eva J'onzz

Hank was completely confused and more than a little upset. He looked over to where Alex stood some feet away. Her back was to him, but he could tell by the violent shaking of her shoulders that she was crying again.

He looked over to the second stone. It was nicer than the other one: white marble, with a little angel on the top. It read "Francis J'onzz", then 2017 under that. The ground around it was freshly dug— it had been placed recently, and the groundskeeper hadn't had time to put grass around it.

There was a thick knot in Hank's throat that was making it difficult for him to breathe. On wooden legs, he walked back over to where Alex stood.

"You were pregnant?" he asked her softly. She shook her head slightly. "Then what?"

"You know Carson Edge?" she asked him after a moment.

"The company that makes babies in labs?" Hank asked with confusion. He did not like the way that this was going.

"Yeah," Alex agreed softly. "I have access to everything that I needed to recreate lab conditions that labs like them use to do it. It was easy enough to get everything set up. I…" She whirled around to face him. "I only started doing it from pure, scientific curiosity. I was excited when the cells took to one another, because it meant that Martians can breed with humans! That was Alison, my first attempt. She didn't even last for a week. Then, I thought that maybe I was doing something wrong with the procedures, so I tried to change them with Bartholomew and Caroline, and while they lasted longer, they both still died before the two week mark. After that, I started to change conditions to mimic Mars, and started to try to replicate what a Martian womb must be like. Or what my best guess was, from the information that you gave me."

"Why did you keep this from me, Alex?" Hank asked with tears in his own eyes.

"I didn't want you to know! It was just an experiment at first, to see if we were biologically compatible…" She trailed off, unable to continue.

"What happened?" he pressed her. "What happened with Francis?" He almost didn't want to hear the words, but he needed to know what had happened.

"He lived the longest out of all of them. A month and a half. They have a heartbeat at that age, you know? I could see it in his chest, and I watched…" She pressed her lips together and was overcome with grief again. Hank went to her and she curled up against him. After a while, she went on. "I watched his tiny little heart stop. He was the size of my finger nail, but…" She started to sob harder.

But Hank didn't need for her to finish. He knew more than anybody the loss a child. Even if the child had only been alive for a month and a half, he knew that the pain that Alex was feeling over his death must be excruciating. And add in the other children…? It was little wonder that she'd finally cracked.

"I tried to be god and failed," Alex sobbed.

"Alex," Hank started slowly. "Alex, look at me."

She looked up at him. He cupped her face and rubbed the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs, even though they were still pouring from her eyes.

"You did not tried to be god," he told her gently. "This is not the act of god, but rather, the act of a mother."

"A mother wouldn't have done something horrible like this!" she snapped at him.

"You think that no mother has ever buried her dead babies and cried over them like this? You might have started this as part of scientific curiosity, but the way that you're reacting to their deaths tells me a lot about you. Not like I need this to let me know that you're a good person. Alex, you don't have to do this alone."

"I don't want to do this anymore!" Alex said sharply with a firm shake of her head. "I can't take the thought of any more of my babies dying!"

"Okay," Hank said slowly. "We can put all of this to bed for a while, and come back to it. Not now, not in the next couple of years, but maybe, some day, we can revisit this. Both of us. Alex, I love you."

"I love you, too," she whispered. She curled up against him, and he held her tightly.

They lost track of how long that they stayed like that, but eventually, even Alex had cried herself out. For the time being, at least. She knew that more tears would come, but right now, she felt like a dried-out well.

Together, they turned and made their way from the cemetery. Their hands were clasped, fingers entwined, and for once, neither really cared about who saw them.

The ride back to Alex's apartment was silent again, but it was a different sort of silence. A great weight had been lifted off from both of them, and even though things weren't okay, they felt a lot better because of it.

Back in Alex's apartment, she started to dig through her movie collection.

"Are you hungry?" Hank asked her gently. She shook her head no.

"Maybe later," she said after a moment.

She finally turned on Groundhog Day and they curled up on the sofa and watched it in silence. It was a stupid movie, in Hank's opinion, but he knew that Alex had seen it more times than she could count, and thus, didn't require her to think too hard about it. And it didn't deal with any sort of lasting death, nor about babies, so he guessed that that was why she'd picked it.

As Phil awoke on February third, Hank turned to Alex. "Marry me," he said, his voice gentle and quiet.

"What?" Alex asked as she turned to him.

"Marry me," Hank repeated himself, a bit louder this time.

She was quiet for a long time. The movie ended, and the credits started to roll in the background, but neither was paying attention. Alex's eyes never left Hank's gaze, and he never took his eyes off from her, either. "Why?" she finally asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Hank said. "Because I love you and I want to spend the rest of your life by your side. Not just as your best friend, lover, and partner, but as your husband."

Alex lunged into his chest and nearly knocked both of them off the sofa in the process. "Yes," she whispered into his chest. "Yes yes yes yes yes."

* * *

This story was not proof-read, and I'd appreciate it if you could tell me of any errors that you spotted.

Thank you for reading; I hope I didn't scar you too much.


End file.
